Configuring the CPQ (Configure, Price and Quote)

It has been observed in recent days that now CPQ is moving beyond the traditionally area of high end engineering to Telecommunications, Life Sciences….

This product will need different customization for their product line.

Simply relying on the fact that configuration is universal and standard across all industries will be very premature.

for example I can start from the traditional area of CPQ – Large Mechanical Industry like Aircraft manufacturing versus Car manufacturing.

How can CPQ functions in aircraft industry.

Well there are few areas where there is high degree of customization required in an aircraft.

All Aircraft consists of two type of systems one mandatory system (like engine, RAT, oxygen) other are customer dependent – these are the system which are highly customization and are the one that extinguishes one airLines to another (like Cabin configuration, Entertainment system, on boarding systems). This where CPQ will play major role.

How can CPQ functions in automobile industry.

Coming to Car configuration – the degree of configuration starts from the engine capacity to interior, to sunroof and every details of “stretch limousines” the point to remember is the option and how many items can be configured ?

It also depends upon the how the particular industry can take these numerous configuration, are the backhand manufacturing capabilities are there to handle these configurations.

Yes this will need to tailoring of the CPQ software. One thing to remember one system can remain in isolation it needs to interact with other system and give output which could be assimilated by other systems. hence one CPQ addressing all and sundry – NO.

and to address this each CPQ needs to be tuned to each industry and customer needs.

the configuration would also needed when CPQ moves from B2C to B2B. as the constraints, the rules, the selection variation and “What-if” analysis is different at each interaction